The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe (25 page)

Animal control tried to inject it with their delicious poisons, but they stopped. They said we can't. We can't inject. It is a machine. And they flipped its switch and it died. I have never been so relieved to be safe and so disappointed to be shorted my vengeance.

Our new program director, Lauren, came in and wanted to know why we destroyed my gift. My gift? I asked. It's your birthday, she replied. Daniel and I and the whole Strexcorp management team got you that StrexPet, because we know you love animals so much. And I replied, but it's a machine. A biomachine, she retorted. And it's not my birthday, I mumbled as animal control took Khoshekh away.

I'm going to go now. Go see my Khoshekh. He should be out of surgery in half an hour or so. I'm sure he will live. I'm sure he will float again at a fixed point exactly four feet up in the men's bathroom of our community radio station.

I'm sure there is vengeance to be found. I'm sure I will find it. I'm sure I just have to find the right recipient.

Stay tuned next for the sound of your own thoughts, broadcast live on the radio for all to hear.

And as always, good night, Night Vale. Good night.

PROVERB: You won't sleep when you're dead, either.

EPISODE 44:

“COOKIES”

APRIL 1, 2014

GUEST VOICE: LAUREN SHARPE

I
WAS NEVER A
G
IRL
S
COUT
.

I was in 4-H though, and I spent one summer completely satisfied with my place in the world.

I'll try to explain that feeling later.

Instead of cookies, we sold geraniums to raise money. I remember going to my 4-H leader's house to have a planning meeting. The air was warm; it had just rained. I liked the way the rain looked on the sidewalk as we came up to the front door. I learned to make a thing called Puppy Chow that day.

My two areas of study in 4-H were geology and cooking. I knew a decent amount about rocks and stuff. My sister and I used to hunt for arrowheads and geodes in the cornfield behind our house. For the state fair I made a poster with all kinds of geological specimens. And some brownies.

I want to try to explain that feeling I mentioned. This is a feeling that I've felt only a handful of times in my life and it's a fleeting moment and it's so quiet and simple. It's connected to creating, creation, place, and time. It's a feeling of being just right, just where you are in the world. It's 78 degrees under a shady tree and knowing that everything is really okay. It's just a moment. It's over. But it was there and you know that it's real and maybe it's because you were in that weird and wonderful place between being a little kid and a teenager and it was the summer and all you had to do was think about rocks and brownies and selling some flowers and it's nice to have a purpose and doesn't it feel just great to be alive sometimes?!

Here's how to make Puppy Chow:

Get a big bowl.

Put a bunch of peanut butter, regular butter, and chocolate chips in it.

Put it in the microwave and zap it until it's melted.

Double up two brown paper shopping bags and fill the bag with two boxes of Chex or Crispix-like, neutral-tasting cereal.

Dump the bowl of melty goodness into the bag of cereal and close it up tight.

Shake it well.

Open it up again.

Toss a bunch of powdered sugar in and close it up tight again.

Shake it until it covers all of the cereal, then open it and taste a bit. It's delicious. You're welcome.

—Lauren Sharpe, Voice of Strexcorp's Lauren Mallard

All that glitters is not gold. Particularly that thing over there. That's maybe a giant insect of some sort. It's really too dark to tell.

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.

I am not a good salesman. This is why I am a radio host, listeners, because while I like to talk to people—“a real people person” it says in Russian at the bottom of my college degree—I don't like to shape a conversation toward buying and selling. I like to tell people stories, stories that affect them, allowing my listeners to process the stories in their own unique ways. I don't want to directly tell them how to think. I am not a good salesman.

That being said, I have Girl Scout cookies. Please, if you want some, come on up to the station.

My niece Janice joined the Girl Scouts last year and I have box upon box of Caramel deLites, Thin Mints, and those lemon ones. There are also quite a few of these new cookies in very heavy, unmarked black boxes that I think are made entirely of metal. And there's one box that's a five-foot-by-five-foot wooden crate with airholes cut into the top and “Peanut Butter Patties” scrawled on it in permanent marker. I can hear breathing inside.

I know people normally order the cookies first and then get them delivered weeks later, but sometimes a mother goes out of town, and the stepfather isn't on top of his stepdaughter's extracurricular activities, and then the child doesn't know how to sell cookies on her own, so the kindly uncle with a busy radio job has to step in and buy up a bunch of boxes so she can go camping with her friends while you continue to disappoint everyone with your inattention to detail, and sports gambling, and idiotic taste in shoes, Steve Carlsberg. Yes, Steve, this is how things sometimes happen.

Anyway, listeners, these cookies are delicious. And I had to buy a lot of them. There is barely any room here in the studio or in my producer, Daniel's, booth. So buy some cookies. Please help us. It is difficult to move actually.

Sorry. I am not a good salesman.

Many of you have written in asking about our station cat, Khoshekh. He was attacked by an animal that our stup— that our evi— that our Station Management let in the building for some careless reason.

Khoshekh's on the mend. He lost his right eye. His legs are healing, but he's missing part of his front left paw and will walk with a limp. He's at the vet today to have the feeding tube removed. It's fine. He is fine.

Here's something nice, though. Khoshekh spent his whole life floating four feet off the ground at a fixed point in the men's bathroom here at our station. He never moved from there until he was attacked. I hate to think much about the pain he's been in while healing from broken bones and severe lacerations, but . . . listeners, I got to hold Khoshekh for the first time last week. I got to pick him up, hug him, carry him around my home.

Carlos is allergic to cats, but I bought him some Claritin, so he'll be fine while Khoshekh heals. Thanks for all your concerns, dear listeners. It's wonderful to have him back.

Oh, hey, Janice's Girl Scout cookies have really been moving. The guys in Sales just came by and bought some classic shortbread cookies. The guys were all wearing matching suits and wool hats. And they threw the boxes of cookies back and forth to each other while shouting “hup!” and “catch!” and “look alive, Shawn!” as they jogged back to their cubicles.

All of the guys in Sales are named Shawn.

So if you like delicious cookies, come on up to the station. I already bought all these cookies with my own money, but I told Janice I would donate back all the proceeds from selling these boxes, so it's kind of an extra gift to the Girl Scouts of Night Vale.

Several listeners and co-workers have bought cookies, but no one from Station Management yet.

It's really nice when you have the support of your management. I mean, let's be honest. No job is perfect. And relationships between bosses and employees aren't always friendly. You're going to have disagreements, of course—little disputes. Sometimes big disputes. Enormous ones. But you get over those things. You forgive and forget, only to retract both and be filled with vindictive rage and unrelenting memories of the pain brought upon you.

Such are the difficulties of professional life. Sure do hope Station Management steps it up here. We're all friends after all. Looking at you in the booth there, Daniel.

Listeners, Daniel is blushing. He is very very red. You have a lot of blood Daniel. (Listeners, I really mean that. Daniel looks to have a lot of blood.)

Let's have a look now at traff—

DANA:
Cecil.

CECIL:
Hello? Listeners, I just saw a glimmer, a flicker of something here in the studio. One moment there was simply a wall and a floor and air, and then in another moment there was a shape of a person, of a woman, a—

DANA:
Cecil, it's your former intern. It's me, Dana.

CECIL:
Dana, where are you? When are you?

DANA:
For right now I'm here in the studio. But I'm also still trapped in the desert, near the mountain, near the lighthouse. But I'm learning more about how this works. If I turn my head just right I can not only see places, but I can be places. I can't do it for long, but it's amazing where I can go, when I can go. I've been visiting with John Peters, you know, the farmer?, who appears here from time to time. I met briefly one of your other former interns, Maureen, who flicks in and out of existence here. I've even made friends with some of the men and women of this nationless army that wanders about the desert.

CECIL:
Dana, I'm so glad you're here now. I haven't heard from you in months. I told your mother and brother I saw you and you were safe and that you loved them very much.

DANA:
Yes. I know. Thank you, Cecil. And do you know what? Today is my brother's birthday. He's twenty-six today, and I used the lighthouse and my new abilities to go visit him. I finally got to see my family again. Very briefly.

CECIL:
That's great news, Dana.

DANA:
But here's what happened. And this is . . . Well, when I appeared in my mother's home, I saw my mother. I saw my brother. I saw their friends. I saw a cake. And the cake said “Happy 33rd Birthday.” And I was confused, because he is only twenty-six. And I saw a woman standing near my brother. She wore a suit. She had short, natural hair. She stood up straight. She glowed. She looked important. I recognized her. And then my brother saw me standing there. And my mother saw me standing there. And others saw me standing there. And they began to cry. But they were fearful tears, turning into shouts and screams. Some people ran from the room. My mother couldn't come near me. I said, “Mom. It's me. Dana.” And I held out my arms and tried to step toward her. And no one could control their fear, their cries. No one could move.

But the woman next to my brother. She was smiling. She knew. She stepped toward me, and in that moment I saw who it was. I knew who it was.

It was me, Cecil. She . . . I . . . must have been twenty-nine, if my math is good. And she (I) turned to my (our) mother and said, “It's okay. It's okay.” And she held her hands up, and people went silent. People listened. And she told the room who I was, who she was, who we were and what had happened (or for me, what will happen). And the tears turned from fear to relief to joy. And we embraced.

CECIL:
You saw yourself. You saw your older self?

DANA:
You should have seen the way everyone looked at the older me, Cecil. They . . . admired me. They saw me for someone else. I must be important in my future life. I must have a good job or be a significant part of society. I must have become something. I tried to ask what I was to become, but I began to blink out of that time and place. And I was back in the desert, more alone, less important.

CECIL:
You have always been important. You have always been something. Age just reveals the facts that always were, Dana. Experience uncovers the you that always was. I am glad to know you will be safe. That you will come home. That— Dana. You just flickered. I can't see you.

DANA:
I can't stay any longer. I am always going somewhere. Someday I won't have to go. I will just be in the place that I am. Our time and space will match again someday, Cecil.